Note 77 — Chapter V · FROGNAL AND WEST END.

‘At the above date Hampstead, with many other parishes, took advantage of a statute passed in the reign of George I., which, with the consent of the major part of the parishioners, empowered the churchwardens and overseers of parishes to purchase or hire any house in the parish, or to contract with any person to lodge and keep and employ the poor ... hiring them, in fact, to contractors. The system, for a while, appeared to work well, but after a time ceased to be useful.’—Howitt, ‘Northern Heights.’